An interesting realisation: a lot of the poetry of mine that I don’t like is because it captures an emotion that I don’t like, whether it’s immature, or embarrassing, or shameful, or whatever. That doesn’t make it bad poetry. Mmmm … given the popularity of the twee out there, the scarcity of scarred poems, this isn’t just me.

It is true that a lot of angry poetry is appalling drivel, but that doesn’t mean it’s the anger that makes it drivel, rather it’s the failure to control the anger poetically. Equally, it’s very easy to only see the anger and miss the poetry.

A lot of them need work, but I now know they’re as good as any other poems of mine.